Shadows of Ivory

by T L Greylock

  “You know, another woman once told me something very similar,” Perrin said, not pausing to look at Eska.

  “Oh? And did you follow her instructions closely?”

  “Intimately.”

  “I imagine she was pleased.”

  “Decidedly.”

  “Ah, look,” Eska said, halting the movement of her hand. “Take care here, it’s splintered.”

  “Are we talking about bones again?”

  Eska bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing and twisted to give Perrin a very severe stare, one eyebrow raised. “Were we ever not talking about bones, Barca?”

  Perrin’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Apparently not.” His hand twisted in hers as he tried to return the bush to Eska. “Here, you ought to do the tricky part.”

  “Nonsense. Learn by doing, Perrin, learn by doing.” Eska removed her hand from his. “Go slowly.”

  His brow furrowing, Perrin dipped his head and began to work the soil from the splintered crack in the tibia, tentatively at first until he found a rhythm. After a short while, though, he paused, and Eska could see his forehead wrinkle into a deeper frown. “I think I need a smaller brush.”

  Eska produced the tiny bristled object before he even finished his statement, extending it with a flourish.

  “Were you going to let me blunder on with this one?” Perrin asked, trading brushes.

  “And miss the opportunity to watch you struggle? Not a chance.”

  “What if I had…,” Perrin fished for a mock objection, “broken it? Made the crack worse?”

  Eska held up the brush he had previously been using and poked at the hairs with one finger. “Adolescent capybara hair.” She pointed at the tibia. “Bone.” She waggled the brush. “Hair. Bone.” Perrin rolled his eyes. “Now tell me how exactly you think a bundle of twenty hairs is going to break it?”

  He bent his head once more, brush flicking in tiny strokes. “I’d like to lodge a formal complaint. You’re a very poor instructor.”

  “How very unfortunate for you, then, that you are not an employee and therefore have no legal standing here.” Eska stifled another yawn and lay back on the ground. “Tell me, Perrin,” she went on, pursing the question that had bothered her since learning the Barca ship had sailed from Arconia, “what did your sister know of the Toridium site? I’d had my eye on that stretch of riverbank for some time, but no one seemed to know who held the rights. It was a secret last understood by a long-buried Fortinesc baron.”

  Perrin ceased working on the shin and leaned back on his palms, confusion crinkling his nose. “The Fortinesc estate? That land belonged to it?”

  “That and half of the plains east of the Alencio, thanks to treaties over two hundred years old, a series of entailed inheritances, and a family trust sealed up tighter than the fabled doors of Eilloncia. It’s taken half a dozen of the brightest barristers in Arconia to decipher that trove of paperwork—and they’re still at it.” Eska sighed and rubbed at a smudge of dirt on her wrist.

  “My father would have plundered it without the rights,” Perrin murmured.

  “On the contrary, your father wouldn’t have bothered.” Eska glanced at Perrin and shrugged. “No treasure. It was an academic’s paradise, but not much more than that.” She shifted onto one elbow the better to see his face. “Hence my question. What did your sister want with it?”

  “In truth, Eska, I do not know. She didn’t even want me to join her on this journey. Her contacts at the Court Beneath the Sun told her you were arguing a case for a piece of land near Toridium. She was convinced you had made a valuable discovery. All we had to do was get there first. But beyond that, I did not speculate and she said little.” Perrin went quiet for a moment, his countenance darkening. “She said enough in the end. Words I never thought to hear from her. But then,” and now the bitterness pierced his voice, “she is a Barca and we seem to have a habit of turning our backs on our family members.”

  Eska rested a hand on Perrin’s forearm, knowing there were no words she could speak that might soothe his pain. She let him wear his anger and his grief, let him feel it, and at last he raised his gaze to her face once more.

  “Perhaps you have refrained from saying anything for my benefit, out of some desire to keep my sister’s image untarnished for me.” Perrin shook his head. “You need not tread with such care. I have come to learn that none of my family members are what I once thought them to be. Not my father, who lived for himself and wasted away a fortune. Not my mother, who could not bear to suffer the blow of my father’s imprisonment, not even for the sake of her children. Not Victor, who was the first to show me his true heart, his black heart. And now Manon,” Perrin finished, his voice shaking, his gaze focused on something distant, something only he could see, though his green gaze burrowed into Eska with fierce intensity.

  Eska was quiet, letting some of the heat burn out of Perrin’s face before she spoke. “I am sorry, Perrin. I am sorry for what you have to bear. And I am sorry for any part my family might have played in your burdens.”

  Perrin shook his head, a sad smile on his lips. “I would have done anything for Manon. We were all we had left. I would have sold myself into servitude if she asked. I would have forsaken any dreams I had for myself if they conflicted with hers. Anything. Steal from the Archduke himself. Cut off a limb. Anything.”

  “I hardly think cutting off a limb would have helped her,” Eska said, smiling, “not unless she could turn blood into coin.”

  Perrin smiled again, wryly this time. “My aunt Leandra probably could have. Uncanny woman. More schemes in her brain than ants in a sack of sweets. And strangely ageless.” The smile vanished. “Eska? What is it?”

  Eska blinked, her mind racing, unaware she had risen to her feet until Perrin loomed upward, his figure oddly out of focus.

  “Ageless,” she repeated, her voice a rough whisper. At once Perrin’s face solidified in front of her as her thoughts became clear. “Perrin. I need the caterpillars.”

  ***

  “Caterpillars?” Gabriel asked, earning a quizzical glance from Perrin.

  “Caterpillars,” Eska said, nodding.

  “Caterpillars?” Perrin repeated.

  Rising to her feet, Eska smiled at him. “Trade secret.”

  “Now, this is cruel. You can’t possibly leave me with that.”

  “What’s this, a latent interest in bones surfacing after a long period of dormancy?”

  Perrin laughed. “Bones, no, but I’ll admit I am enormously curious what caterpillars and bones have to do with each other.”

  With mock seriousness, Eska turned to Bastien. “What do you think, Bastien, should we let the Barca watch?” The young man’s sullenness had disappeared in the wake of Eska’s evident excitement.

  “Crueler and crueler,” Perrin said.

  Bastien, to his credit, held a straight face. “Only if he has a strong stomach.” He looked to Perrin, who was frowning now. “Bit gruesome.”

  “I am not unfamiliar with gruesome,” Perrin said.

  “Very well,” Eska said. “Bastien, fetch the jar, if you would.”

  The young man hurried off and began rummaging in back of one of the wagons. Eska set one of the finger bones from the skeleton’s right hand on a separate, smaller piece of linen, far from the rest of the bones.

  Bastien returned with a large glass jar cradled under one arm. Within, a mass of leaves, grasses, and twigs obscured the inhabitants. Eska shook the jar slightly until she revealed the fuzzy form of a caterpillar twisted around a stick.

  “Aren’t you a big one?” she murmured. After removing the cork stopper, Eska extracted the caterpillar, twig and all, and held it out for Perrin to admire. “Handsome, isn’t he?”

  Perrin examined the caterpillar. “He?”

  Eska indicated the pair of curved black horns protruding from the caterpillar’s head. “See those?”

  “I suppose the females have none?”

  Eska grinned. “
On the contrary, my dear, the females have three.”

  Perrin laughed. “Of course they do. He’s a very dull sort of brown. Let me guess, he makes a gorgeous butterfly.”

  “Actually, he won’t. He will never be a butterfly. This particular species doesn’t appear to have learned how to do so.”

  Perrin cocked an eyebrow. “You’re joking.”

  “Not in the slightest,” Eska said, grinning wider still, enjoying the faint scowl on Perrin’s face as he tried to decide whether to believe her.

  “He’s waking up,” Bastien said, leaning close to the twig in Eska’s hand. The caterpillar was uncurling, stretching its many limbs, horned head raised to the air. Eska handed the twig to Bastien and then took up a tiny chisel and hammer. Bending over the finger bone, she, with swift, precise movements, chipped off a small flake and placed it in the middle of the canvas, then returned the rest of the bone to its comrades.

  “You may do the honors, Bastien.”

  The young man lowered the caterpillar, now suspended upside-down from the twig, head stretched toward the table as though it could sense what was waiting. Upon reaching the linen, Bastien set the twig down gently and stepped back.

  The caterpillar, hunched now in the shape of a horseshoe on the stick, did nothing.

  “So terribly gruesome,” Perrin whispered dramatically. “I think I shall never recover from seeing a caterpillar ignore a fragment of bone.”

  Eska laughed. “It’s a good story for new recruits.”

  “In other words, I shouldn’t trust another word out of your mouth.”

  The four of them watched the caterpillar intently for a moment—three of them, really, as Perrin’s expression was decidedly skeptical.

  “I think he’s gone back to sleep,” Bastien said.

  “Must be the heat,” Gabriel put in. “Making him lethargic.”

  Only Eska waited with any patience, her gaze never leaving the fuzzy brown caterpillar as she squatted on the ground, chin in her palm. At last the caterpillar stirred, releasing the twig, then making its way across the linen. It hesitated as it came close to the fragment of bone, head lifted, horns directed first in one direction and then the other. It approached, eliciting a slight narrowing of Eska’s gaze, but its methodical progress came to an abrupt halt when it was half a body length away. Rearing back, legs waggling—looking as disgusted as Eska supposed a caterpillar could look—it retreated at top speed, taking refuge on the twig once more. Eska looked at Gabriel and Bastien with a smile.

  “What does it mean?” Perrin asked, breaking the silent understanding shared by Eska and her crewmember.

  Eska studied the caterpillar for a moment before straightening and addressing Perrin. “It means I was right to wonder why there were bones in the refuse pit. These caterpillars eat a plant-based diet, but they have a special taste for bone. And yet they will not touch a bone that is less than five hundred years old—give or take.”

  Eska watched as Perrin’s gaze dropped to the flake of bone and then shifted to the skeleton and back to the caterpillar, watched him work out the significance of what the insect was telling them. “So, the skeleton is less than five hundred years old.”

  “Yes. But given the history and nature of the site along the Alencio river, any bones discovered there, at the depth we found these, should be more than two thousand years old. This skeleton should be that caterpillar’s dream.” Eska looked over her shoulder at the rest of the skeleton. “Something isn’t right. These bones are too young. This isn’t an Onandya skeleton.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I didn’t say I had a fear of drowning.”

  “How does it feel?”

  Eden San-Germain stood looking at Eska, arms crossed, his forehead bearing the slightest furrow. His features were distorted behind the thick glass of the diving helmet, and the sound of his voice was muffled by the copper and the steady rhythm of Eska’s own breathing.

  “Heavy.” It was the truth, but one Eska admitted reluctantly for fear that Eden might find reason to insist she not make the dive. This admission, however, did not seem to bother him. He was looking intently at the straps and buckles that held the contraption in place on her shoulders and torso.

  Stepping forward, Eden tugged at the leather in a few places, the furrow deepening for a moment. When he stood back, his gaze shifted to Eska’s face.

  “It’s secure. But I’ve already expressed my misgivings.”

  “And I’ve already reminded you that you yourself will be wearing this device for the first time. Logically, your misgivings need to apply to us both,” Eska said.

  “They do,” he said, his voice even quieter. It was the first time he had suggested as much. They helped each other out of the helmets and then he leaned over, withdrew a parcel from his satchel, and handed it to Eska. “I had these made for you as well.”

  Eska undid the string, revealing a set of diving silks as black as Eden’s and smoother than the finest silk she had ever worn to the Varadome. She looked up to express her thanks, but Eden was already carrying on.

  “We’ll make the dive at noon, when the sun is highest and giving us the most light down there. In addition, I have secured two additional sources of light.” Eden reached into the satchel once more and produced a small box. He lifted the lid to show Eska the contents.

  Two small orbs lay nestled in straw. At first Eska thought they were merely dark glass, but as she lifted one out of the box, a thick, inky substance inside swirled to life.

  “They react to your body heat,” Eden said, as the substance inside the orb began to glow and emit a soft, golden light. Eska watched as it grew brighter. “Their lifespan is limited,” the Regatta Master went on. He plucked it from Eska’s fingers and replaced it in the box. It began to dim immediately. “So we don’t want to waste any.” He must have seen the tightness Eska could feel in her jaw. “What is it?”

  “Carrier-made?”

  Eden’s gaze lay heavy on her for a moment before he answered. “Yes.”

  She swallowed, knowing she had to forget her personal aversion for the sake of what lay at the bottom of the lake, and said nothing more. But Eden wasn’t done with the conversation. He strode to the edge of Lake Delo and stepped out onto a large, nearly submerged rock.

  Eska knew what was coming. She wanted to look away.

  Eden closed his eyes and held his hand out, palm down, over the water lapping gently against his rock. A single droplet lifted from the surface, clean and glistening in the morning sun. A second followed, and then a third and fourth. Each rose higher and higher, until they hung, suspended, just below his palm. He rotated his wrist and the water drops followed, then merged. With a sudden flick of his fingers, the water leaped into the air. Eden, his eyes still closed, tilted his head back and opened his mouth, his movement perfectly timed to catch the water on his tongue. He opened his eyes and looked at Eska, a challenge in his expression despite the child-like grin prompted by his own cleverness.

  He remained on the rock and waited.

  There were many things Eska might have said. She chose the one that would get her what she wanted most.

  “I think I begin to understand why you won those sailing races at such an early age.”

  She had chosen well. Eden laughed and rejoined her on the shore. “I would never,” he said, the very picture of solemnity. But then he grew still and looked down into Eska’s eyes. One hand came up and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. The hand lingered, then traced the line of her jaw down to her mouth. His thumb brushed her lower lip. “I am what I am, Eska,” he said. The words, the exact words Alexandre had spoken to her just days before, sent a shiver down Eska’s spine, a shiver that turned to warmth as he leaned in and kissed her. Gently. Briefly. “The water is a part of me and I am a part of it. Can you live with that?” Another kiss.

  “I don’t think I have a choice, not if I want to open that vault,” Eska whispered.

  “You always have a choice.” A third
kiss, so light she barely felt it.

  Eska put a hand on his chest and applied a hint of pressure, making enough space between them so that he could know her answer was not because she was lost in his eyes.

  “Yes,” she said. “I can live with that.”

  The fourth kiss was long and deep and Eska emerged with a smile on her face.

  ***

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Hmm?” Hardly hearing Gabriel, Eska examined the diving silks in the relative privacy of her tent.

  “San-Germain.” Gabriel stood at the entrance, clearly uncomfortable voicing his opinion so strongly, but unwilling to stay silent. He fidgeted with the edge of the canvas as Eska turned to face him.

  “There’s a reason I asked you to accompany me here, Gabriel, and not Cedric. But he seems to have loaned you some of his nervous tendencies.”

  “What do we really know about him, my lady?” Gabriel was warming to his task.

  Eska set aside the silks. “We know he took three days of his time to make me a custom diving helmet. We know he understands the lake, the water. And I happen to know he’s been desperate for an opportunity to test his invention—though he won’t say so much out loud.” The engineer’s frown only deepened. Eska closed the distance between them, uncrossed his arms, and took one of Gabriel’s hands between hers. “I understand your concerns, Gabriel. But I do not see another means of getting to the bottom of the lake. And I don’t know about you, but I would rather not have made my midnight escape from Toridium for nothing. We have to try.”

  Gabriel clasped his other hand to Eska’s, his gaze unrelenting. “I can only imagine what your uncle would say if he knew a Barca had wormed his way into our work. And now another stranger.”